Voice-activated speaker meets tablet

Lenovo has come up with a unique way to turn your humble house into a smart home with its new Home Assistant Pack.

Unveiled during IFA 2017, this "pack" consists of a speaker onto which you attach a Lenovo Tab 4 tablet. This creates a sort-of makeshift Amazon Echo Show, i.e. a speaker with a display.

And wouldn't you know: the Home Assistant Back is backed by digital assistant Amazon Alexa, so it will provide verbal as well as visual information to users.

The types of information you'll see on tablet's screen include weather updates, a look at your calendar and what music is being played.

Like an Amazon Echo, the Home Assistant Pack speaker is voice activated. You can ask it to perform tasks, such as play music or turn on a connected device.

The speaker base features two three-watt speakers, and it can detect your voice from up to three meters away with its double built-in mics, Lenovo said.

It's also light, weighting 300 grams, or just over half a pound, letting you take the speaker and dock from room-to-room as you like.

Amazon's Echo Show

If this all sounds appealing, there is a catch. The Home Assistant Pack only works when connected to a Tab 4 series tablet, a device we were pleasantly surprised by when we first encountered it in our hands on Lenovo Tab 4 review.

As the tablet comes with either an 8- or 10-inch screen, your Home Assistant Pack has a little built-in customization.

There's also an optional Kid's Pack, which turns the Tab 4 into a device for young ones, and a Productivity Pack that transforms the Tab 4 10 and Tab 4 10 Plus into a 2-in-1 for us older folk, according to Lenovo.

The Home Assistant Pack starts at US$79.99 (about £65 / AU$100), with prices varying by country when it launches in October.

The Tab 4 itself is a great value, only costing $109 (about £85 / AU$140) and $149 (about £115 / AU$190) for the respective sizes. So, for a Tab 4 8 and Home Assistant Pack, you'll spend $188.99. Still less than the Echo Show.

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